In the call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said the majority of subscriptions lost came from China and other countries in the East. They also declined to provide a forecast for future numbers. However, though this may seem like a shocking number, you have to remember that this is during a lull in the expansion. Without major content patches, WoW tends to lose subscribers only to regain them during an expansion's launch. Here's to hoping Mists of Pandaria brings players back!

Without further ado, here's the news round up.

Wired.com Interview with J.Allen Brack on Mists of Pandaria

One of Blizzard’s strategies for continually expanding its incredibly popular massively multiplayer world has been the release of expansive add-on packages, which thus far have had serious, tortured names like Cataclysm and Wrath of the Lich King.

At its annual BlizzCon convention in October, the publisher said it would try a different tack with the next WoW package. Titled Mists of Pandaria, its primary additions to the fantasy world are a new playable race of martial artist pandas and a Pokémon-style system in which players can battle their virtual pets.

With dipping subscriber numbers (11.1 million, down from 12 million in 2009) and Electronic Arts’ competing MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic coming in December, it might seem like the unconventional new Warcraft package is something of a desperation move on Blizzard’s part, adding more mainstream-friendly features just to keep fans’ attention.

To get some clarification on Pandaria, Wired.com spoke with World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack at BlizzCon.

Wired.com: Pandaren have existed since Warcraft III. Why do the Pandaren race now?

J. Allen Brack: It’s been something that we wanted to do for a long time. We’ve talked about the Pandaren for just about every expansion. That’s definitely not a new idea for us; it was super popular with the fans when we put them in Warcraft III. It was super popular with us. So it was just one of those things in the back of our mind that we wanted to do even before the original game launched.

We started talking about ideas for the next expansion, and when we were wrapping up Cataclysm someone said, “Hey, let’s talk about the Pandaren again.” We started talking about it more and more. Then one day it just became, “Wow, we’re really excited about this idea,” which eventually became the Pandaren.

Wired.com: The Pandaren are the first race to be playable for both factions . Why do this now?

World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack.Photo: Blizzard

Brack: We talked about a great deal back in Cataclysm for the Goblin race. We thought that Goblins could be a neutral race because they’re neutral in the game already. Players start out as neutral and then you can go Horde or Alliance with that.

Obviously we ended up not doing that . But that was something we spent a lot of the time thinking about. The idea that was really compelling was that you start adventuring with people, and then one day, you have to choose sides. So that’s why we decided to do it this time around. It seems like it worked real well.

Wired.com: So why didn’t you end up doing that with the Goblin in Cataclysm?

Brack: We were really excited about the Worgens as well. We talked a long time about the Goblin and decided we really needed a more whimsical race on the side of the Horde, and we really need something that’s a little darker, a little more sinister on the side of the Alliance. We needed to bring a little bit more character to both those factions. We were really enamored with the idea of doing a Worgen and doing a shape-changing race. That was something that was one of our first ideas for Cataclysm. Goblin had been a fan favorite for years and years and years, and so that was on the list as well. Once we made that decision for Cataclysm that was going forward, we thought, “OK, well if we’re talking about a new race for the next expansion, then maybe we can resurrect the idea of players choosing the faction.”

You’re only neutral for 10 levels. When you get to level 10 you actually decide Horde or Alliance. When you’re in and you’re completing those first 10 levels, that’s very much in its own kind of environment. And the Pandarens that you see out in the world as a normal player, you’re going to see as either Horde or Alliance. You’re not going to see any neutral Pandarens out in the world.

Players who want to play as the Pandaren monks in Pandaria can do so whether they are Horde or Alliance, a first for the MMO. Image: Blizzard

Wired.com: Some critics are saying that Blizzard is “jumping the shark” by having cute “kung-fu pandas” in their expansion. What do you say to that?

Brack: We don’t really worry about that because we really feel that our fans are going to be really excited about it. We have the community that’s really excited about what we’re doing.

The team is really excited about doing it. So that’s really what’s important. When it comes out, it’s going to be great. I can understand the concept of “Why isn’t there a big bad guy?” in this expansion? But how many times can we say, “This bad guy is going to destroy the world now and this time it’s serious? No, this guy, he’s really, really, really, really bad!”

So taking a break from that was very conscious and just having a very different tone. Instead of Horde and Alliance, we team up to defeat the big evil. It’s about the discovery of this new land and how the conflict of the Horde and Alliance influences that. With Outland and then with Northrend we had these self-contained areas where players came for an adventure in the higher level. That was really successful.

With Cataclysm, we didn’t have that. It was very much focused on redoing the entire levels 1-60 experience. You didn’t have, “This is the high level area.” So that’s something we actually want to get back to, that kind of experience and that kind of visual.

Wired.com: As far as the Pandaren lore, clearly it was inspired by Asian cultures. How do you play to that without resorting to stereotypes?

Brack: We’ve always tried to make Warcraft very much its own thing. Certainly we have influences from all around the world. And certainly the panda is the symbol of China. Obviously, there’s a lot of influence, but it’s a very light touch of how much China it is or how much it is the rest of Asia. We just tried to take little bits here and there and incorporate it into our own thing.

Wired.com: Was there any consulting with your Chinese office, as far as that goes?

Brack: We talked with the office obviously, and they were really excited about what we were doing. The most important thing for the game is that the team making it should be excited about it. Because people who are excited about things that they’re working on they are going to put a lot more of their heart and soul into it and that’s really what makes great games.

Wired.com: Another thing that people either love or hate is the pet battle system. Would you liken it to Pokémon, as some are calling it? How would you describe the gameplay? Is it just a fun side thing, or are we going to see some serious pet PvP tournaments?

Brack: That’s a really good question. I think a lot of that is going to determine on the tuning which we haven’t actually made yet. The point of it is just to be a very fun thing that players can do. But you’d be amazed how hardcore people get about certain things. Actually, you probably wouldn’t be amazed…

So that’s definitely a goal for us, but more importantly it has to be fun and give something to players to do with their pets. People have been collecting pets for a lot of years now. When we put the very first pet in, people were super excited. Some said “Hey, I want my pets to battle each other.” Now we’re saying, “OK, that sounds great. Your pets should be able to battle each other. Let’s build a system around that.” When we did Cataclysm, we removed pets from your actual bags and put them all in your spell book, which means there’s a lot of people who have a lot of pets.

Wired.com: You said you’re still working on the pet tuning. How are you going to balance that? Are rare pets better, or is it how players equip them?

Brack: It’s definitely going to be how players equip their pets. So you’ll be able to say, “Hey, I want this pet,” and that pet maybe is the ultra rare one that has these three or four abilities. Someone else can have a common pet that has similar abilities or different types. It’s much more a rock, paper, scissors kind of approach in terms of how the combat is going to work as opposed to, “I’ve got the one uber-rare pet and now I’m all powerful.” That’s how we’re going to do it.

Wired.com: Are you worried about farming for rare pets, then? I can see China starting pet farms for rare pets because pets are…

Brack: Pets are very special. They’re close to people’s hearts. We haven’t seen a whole lot of farms in terms of stuff like that. That’s a really interesting question. I really hadn’t thought about how that would work. We’ll definitely be looking at all the various drop rates and how people actually get all the various pets in the game. Our goal is to actually have all the pets that you currently have translate right into that system. So there will be new pets for you to get. But you’ll also be able to start using your existing pets as well.

Wired.com: With so many expansions out, are you worried about new players being confused about which ones they need to have and which ones they should buy and in what order? How do you solve that?

Brack: That’s something that we talk about all the time. Over the summer we actually rolled the Burning Crusade expansion into the , so there is no Burning Cruade expansion. And that’s something we evaluate on a pretty regular basis. “How many boxes should we have on the shelf?” It can be very overwhelming. We don’t like that. And we want it to always be clear what players need.

Right now all of our expansions extend the level cap. So there’s really no way to just buy the brown box and Mists of Pandaria, because how would you get from level 60 to level 85? So they do need everything to get the newest content. Will we roll Wrath of the Lich King into the brown box? Eventually yes, just like we did Burning Crusade. When will we do that? I don’t think we know yet.

Wired.com: Both Diablo III and Mists of Pandaria feature the Monk class. Did you talk to the Diablo team about this? Did you get together to discuss the name or the class traits?

Brack: It’s pretty separate, honestly. Sometimes we’ll have discussions like, “Hey, we’re using the same name for this kind of system.” That can maybe cause some confusion, but that’s super rare. All the various teams are very solo. Which is not to say we don’t talk, but we don’t have the design council of Blizzard that decides, “OK, for World of Warcraft we’re doing monk. For Diablo we’re doing monk. For this game we’re doing that.”

It really doesn’t work that way. Each team decides what they want to do. On the couple times we’ve had a name collision, we’ll say, “Hey, we need to name this a little bit differently or something like that.” It’s really rare.

Wired.com: In the past, Blizzard has promised a World of Warcraft expansion every year. Has that just become too unrealistic?

Brack: A long time ago, someone made an on-the-record comment it would be great if there were expansions every year. I think that would be great. That’s not really something that we can really do today. Mostly, we just try to do the best thing we can and make sure it’s a great experience. The most important thing is when players get the game that it’s a great experience. We are trying to make the expansions faster. There’s no question about that. We haven’t been really successful with that at all. Every expansion has taken about two years. In fact, Cataclysm took longer than all of our other expansions. So, yeah it’s something we’re definitely trying to get better at, but we’re not quite there yet.

Wired.com: Having worked on so many expansions, do you find the process becoming faster and easier?

Brack: Well, there’s always new stuff. What ends up happening is we get faster at making some of the content in the various pipelines. But at the same time, we add things to that pipeline. A really good example is the Encounter Journal, which we released in 4.2. It’s awesome. It lets player know about all the bosses, all the abilities and the various things that they can do. But including that increases the amount of work that we have to do for every single boss from now. So even if we made content faster, we also add things to slow us down at more or less an equal rate. It’s super challenging.

Talk on Dailies and Bad Design

This is just a bad design. A game should not ask for daily commitment to enjoy what it has to offer.

They ask nothing - they merely reward a choice.

We typically provide some boundaries because, as you've illustrated, something that we allow, is something that can all too easily seem mandatory. That's not what we want, but we do want to provide a reason to come into the game, be in the world, and see what's happening on a frequent basis. It's nice to also be able to offer some rewards for doing that. Naturally, dailies shouldn't be the only way to accrue rewards, and they aren't. Dailies were, in part, a response to a World of Warcraft where there wasn't a lot of incentive to come play on non-raid days, since for many players, the only way to progress became dungeon runs and, for a few, raiding. We also wanted to provide another means of acquiring currency aside from professions, and new ways to acquire reputation with important factions too. They're designed to hit a lot of notes (I'm probably missing some), and I think that they're pretty successful. You don't have to hit your cap, (indeed, one of our fears about a raised daily cap is that players might feel compelled to hit the new, higher cap) but you can if you want to put in the time. Naturally, we also want to continue to add other means of progression to the end-game, and we're looking for ways to do so in a fun and compelling way.

I get concerned when I see players throwing out words like 'bad design'. Perhaps an individual dislikes a design choice, and that's fine. We do our best, but World of Warcraft can't be all things to all people, all the time. That said, making a value judgment about whether the design is 'bad' or not is not only un-constructive, but in the vast majority of the cases I've seen, such an assessment reveals that the design was not well understood to begin with.

These forums represent an opportunity to have a dialogue about the game. I think that choosing words that have context and meaning, and offering alternative solutions, makes for feedback which is more readily useful.

what is a proper description for rehashed content?

A response to many, many requests over the years from the community to revisit old dungeons and characters?

I have a question then: If the intent is to give players a choice, why is it that the Molten Front dailies award gear upgrades from tier 11? Unless you raided firelands, those dailies weren't a choice, they were a path to progression (which, in my opinion, was a wrong decision to make).

Daily quests like the Netherwing ones in Outland or the Argent Tournament in Northrend feel like a "choice" because ultimately the rewards involved have no bearing on your character's power (mounts and pets are cool to have, but aren't by any means mandatory). They feel optional. For non-rading characters, the Molten Front (and to a certain extent, Tol Barad) dailies don't "feel" optional at all, because opting out of them means you're giving up gear upgrades, which is never a cool thing to do.

Any comments on that?

There are plenty of other dailies where the rewards have been non-power related. The goal was different for Molten Front, and we deliberately wanted to offer a separate path to power for interested players. So, we wanted it to be compelling in that way. Still, it remains that there are alternative, non-raid, paths to power aside from Molten Front.

If the Time Lost protodrake, Poseidus, that drake in Deepholme, and the camel figurine in Uldum qualify as "enriching" then I'm going to suspend my account again. >.<

It could be argued that, by adding nuances to the zones they're in, they do enrich the game.

They add things to hunt for, to seek out, and achieve. They're not easy to get, and that's fine, because they weren't designed to be easy to get. It's a very particular kind of goal for a particular kind of player - we don't expect everyone to pursue them, and if it's not fun for you to do so, then hopefully there are fun goals for you to achieve that are suited to your playstyle.

So are you saying that your employer has never implemented a "bad" design? By that logic, they'd never have to change anything, ever. Fact is, your employer makes bad design decisions all the time. The saving factor is their willingness to correct those flaws when presented.

I don't think it would be reasonable to suggest that we haven't made mistakes. We've made them, and acknowledged them throughout the years. There are, however, differences between mistakes and bad design.

That said, those mistakes haven't typically aligned with the criticisms of 'bad design' I was referring to. Like I said, in just about every post where I've personally seen the words 'bad design' used, there was also a fundamental lack of understanding about design in general.

Usually, it boils down to just another way for people to try to enforce their vision of what World of Warcraft should be. I'm just pointing out that using that tactic in one's feedback is a good way to start off on the wrong foot.

WOW is the only game where I found myself generally doing the exact same thing I was doing over a year ago.

Forgive me for saying so, but that seems like a strange statement to me because most games I've played don't change much from year to year, if they change at all. Actually, I'm not doing the same thing in World of Warcraft now, that I was a year ago. The same general gist of things, sure. Games don't tend to radically change their core gameplay in a year's time. Most never change their gameplay at all. In that context, World of Warcraft changes quite a bit more than most games.

Gear Look Customization

Pretty please?I like transmogrifying in the new patch. It puts emphasis that our characters are strong and not just our gear. Sometimes wearing a dress or shirt looks really bad with shoulders..

At least for now, there are no plans to make other slots 'invisible'. We're starting things slow with the first roll out of Transmogrification, so the feature set has a good chance of expanding in the future.

It's also worth mentioning that shoulder items are highly distinctive, and a lot of effort is invested in making those items look cool and interesting. It's not currently a high priority to hide gear which is so integral to the overall look of World of Warcraft.

Your opinions have been duly noted. Fortunately, even if you can't turn them off, using the Transmogrification option will allow you to choose more aesthetically pleasing shoulders. If you happen to find all the shoulders in the game ugly, then I can't help you.

I understand that there are particular looks which are more minimalistic. Transmogrification isn't being added with the intention of making every conceivable look possible - at least, that's not the current intention. It's being added to provide more--a lot more--customization options. I think it's fair to say that it will achieve that goal admirably.

Let's see how things shake out. =)

Outlook on Loot System

What we are doing for 4.3 with the Raid Finder looting system (detailed here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3608426) is an experiment in order to try and reduce loot drama without removing the chance to benefit from offspec gear completely. In fact, a lot of what we are trying with Raid Finder for 4.3 is our very first attempt at a design that is going to need a lot of iteration before we’re happy with how it works. We’ll use the information we gather on the new looting system (we can call it Need+, for simplicity's sake) and Raid Finder in 4.3 to make both features even better for Mists of Pandaria.

The game currently does not have a very robust notion of what your spec is, so for now we can’t make the loot rules very stringent, other than checking your current role. In Mists of Pandaria, the game will have a well-developed "concept" of spec, and we can do things like let an Enhancement shaman roll need plus on an Agility axe without letting the Restoration shaman roll need plus. (The Resto shaman could still roll need though, since shaman can use axes and the player might presumably have an Enhancement offspec.)

EU Portuguese Realm Available Soon

With the release of the next World of Warcraft content update, Hour of Twilight (patch 4.3), players on European realms will be able to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese. On December 7 a realm dedicated to the Portuguese community will open with optional time-limited free character transfers from specific European English realms with high Portuguese populations. Please stay tuned to these forums for additional information.

Comments

Comment by Voranil

on 2011-11-08T22:32:13-06:00

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said the majority of subscriptions lost came from China and other countries in the East.

it seems blizz's strategy of china being their ace in the hole is not working. also, it is worthwile noting that the government of china has a frequent tendency to lock down the internet of that country.

However, though this may seem like a shocking number, you have to remember that this is during a lull in the expansion. Without major content patches, WoW tends to lose subscribers only to regain them during an expansion's launch.

doesnt this sound familiar? 4.2 was touted as the magic bullet for all the problems too wasnt it. and yet in 3 months wow loses almost as many subs than in 8 months from cata launch till august. at this current rate, the next time we see a report in february next year, the figure is going to be over a million. and now that the christmas release period is approaching, WoW has a dangerously exposed flank.

Without major content patches, WoW tends to lose subscribers only to regain them during an expansion's launch. Here's to hoping Mists of Pandaria brings players back!

mike morhaime interestingly mentioned the youtube vid for MoP had 3m views on it. i wonder how could the 50% dislike bar have been missed?as for MoP being the magic bullet(again), now you are starting to sound like napoleon at waterloo.

Comment by executorvgk

on 2011-11-08T22:34:04-06:00

This isn't a comforting thought... because it means they could hemorrhage subs and still make money. Being profitable and being in decline, it seems, are two completely different things. The economy is strange like that. Also as a player, it's FAR from comforting because people are leaving and I don't care how much money is being made.. in an MMO if there are fewer people it's bad news for the players.

The Eastern market functions differently than we do here in the West, the reason it happens is that the Western market pays $15 a month wheras Asian players have a pay per hour type of system, lots (possibly most) of them pay less than $3 a month yet count as a sub.

You are right though less players means less people to group with etc. but it isn't as bad as you make it out to be, to you and many other players in game right now it won't even affect you, take a look at this graph, you see that big dip in subs, that occurred due to a temporarily embargo of WoW in china, for a short amount of time the Chinese government basically banned WoW in their country, lot's of people here in the west don't know this even happened because the Asian playerbase is so separate from the Western market and servers.

I'm not trying to say Asian subs are less important than Western subs but merely that the Asian market is much more volatile than in the West, if the Chinese government wanted to they could outright ban WoW again, iirc Asia didn't get cataclysm until like 3 or 4 months after the West got it due to legal issues.

Point is the 2 markets are separate, currently Blizz is suferring from their Eastern market yet seems to have a more or less stable Western population, ya losing subs is never good but Blizz hurting a bit in the east doesn't necessarily mean WoW is hurting in the West, if anything the income numbers would argue that WoW is prospering in the Western market.

Comment by Voranil

on 2011-11-08T22:44:03-06:00

had wow not deviated from the wotlk model, that is raids being accessible to casuals, the losses would have been less. on the mmo champion article of this, it supposedly said blizz had learned their lesson with cata. if that is the case, shouldnt ghostcrawler be getting a nerf of the permanent variety soon? now it is too early to judge on MoP, but the rumours seem to be that wow is trying to go 'back to basics' and there will be no villain for the xpac?

Comment by executorvgk

on 2011-11-08T22:51:02-06:00

but the rumours seem to be that wow is trying to go 'back to basics' and there will be no villain for the xpac?

Vanilla WoW didn't have a primary antagonist, there was no Lich King or Deathwing type figure which the expansion was based around.

Comment by ShinEmperor

on 2011-11-08T23:00:23-06:00

You are right though less players means less people to group with etc. but it isn't as bad as you make it out to be, to you and many other players in game right now it won't even affect you

Thanks for the clarity on the topic. Also the bit quoted above isn't true of me. I won't notice it, I'm playing Rift at the moment. Also,I apologize if I made it sound like "Doom and Gloom" was just kind of noticing that Blizzard could make money (good for Blizz) but still lose subs (bad for players) a thought that was really interesting to me.

Comment by TagraNar

on 2011-11-08T23:13:56-06:00

Were people really clamoring for a revamp of SFK and DM? I mean, really?

I still don't get push for them, and the Scarlet Monastery announcement was the one disappointment I had with Blizzcon.

Comment by vexis58

on 2011-11-08T23:37:47-06:00

players on European realms will be able to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese

Wait, "Brazilian Portuguese"... in Europe? Where do they think Brazil is, exactly? Are they aiming specifically for Brazilian immigrants in Europe? Because, if they think a Brazilian Portuguese version of the game will be popular in Portugal (or in other Portuguese-speaking countries, for that matter), then they really don't understand the market they're trying to sell to. I work for a business software company, and before we had standard Portuguese versions of our products, the English version outsold the Brazilian version by more than 7 to 1 in Portugal.

I would assume that even though Brazil isn't located in Europe (the continent) it could still be located in the European region lockout. Now, I don't know anything about how software manufacturers treat Brazil when creating lockouts, but it seems possible to me. Next you're going to be complaining about players in Australia not actually being in North America.

Plus, if you were a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian, would you rather play on a Portuguese server in Europe, or an English server in the US where you can't understand anyone else at all? By releasing Brazilian Portuguese servers in the European region lockout rather than the US one, it makes it far easier for the Brazilians who were already playing the game on the Portuguese servers to move to their own servers (same as when Blizzard released Oceanic servers and allowed the Australian players to migrate over to them easily).

The thing that bothers me about that article is actually...

We talked about a great deal back in em for the Goblin race.

That was something that was one of our first ideas for em.

Once we made that decision for em that was going forward, we thought,

What the hell is this "em" they keep referencing? Does it stand for something?

Comment by Eldente

on 2011-11-08T23:38:20-06:00

WoW lost subscribers mostly in China, and now releases an Eastern-themed expansion. Makes sense.

The first interview sums up to "MoP is gonna be ossum!1!", really...it gave me that impression. It gave only slight insight into the development of the expansion.

What Daxxarri said: "If you don't like playing the game, UR DOIN IT WRONG."

Hurray for new loot rules and 4.3 before December 7, though!

Comment by lonewarrior

on 2011-11-09T00:28:21-06:00

players on European realms will be able to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese

Wait, "Brazilian Portuguese"... in Europe? Where do they think Brazil is, exactly? Are they aiming specifically for Brazilian immigrants in Europe? Because, if they think a Brazilian Portuguese version of the game will be popular in Portugal (or in other Portuguese-speaking countries, for that matter), then they really don't understand the market they're trying to sell to. I work for a business software company, and before we had standard Portuguese versions of our products, the English version outsold the Brazilian version by more than 7 to 1 in Portugal.

In my opinion Blizzard didn't kill this game, the players did!

Yes, because the players are the ones who refuse to deal with ninjas and spammers, the players are the ones who created a broken dungeon finder, the players are the ones who pushed stat inflation to force everyone to buy new expansion immediately or be left miles behind, the players are the ones who made 99% of the game world useless and decided that gameplay at maximum level should consist of doing the same two instances and the same six dailies over and over and over again, the players are the ones who kept buffing arcane mages until the class that requires the least skill became the most desirable DPS to have in a RAID, reducing performance to grinding for better gear (in a sad metaphor of what WoW as a whole has become), and so on, right...?

As Lore keeps saying, only Blizzard can kill WoW. And they've been doing one hell of a job in the last couple of expansions. Pandaria is looking like the final nail.

Clearly, all the designers with a vision for the game left at some point during WotLK development, and the game has been driven by short-term profits since then. Well, short-term profits often lead to long-term losses, as Blizzard is discovering. Instead of firing the incompetent designers and focusing on what gave WoW depth, they decided to go full steam ahead into this new "high churn" model, hoping they'd manage to capture enough "casual new players" to offset the loss of long-term subscribers. Except that failed, too. WoW didn't lose 800 thousand players in the last 3 months, it lost well over one million. It just managed to attract around 300 thousand new ones, who will quit as soon as they realise how shallow the game currently is.

Announcing the next expansion (with reshuffled talent trees and even instance maps!) this early, when the final boss from the current expansion isn't even in the game yet, just shows that not even Blizzard thinks WoW 4.xx can hold players' interest. In fact, they don't even seem to trust the pandas to keep players interested or attract enough new ones to compensate the ones they'll lose, since they're now giving Diablo away for free to people who buy a yearly subscription to WoW (probably just so they can continue to count those accounts as "active subscriptions" even if those players stop playing after a couple of months, as Blizzard expects them to). Expect a massive drop in the number of subscriptions one year from now, when those stop being counted.

I cancelled my subscription after BlizzCon, and I keep getting e-mails from Blizzard giving me "7 more days of free play", probably just so they can keep counting me as a subscriber. But with the shallow, repetitive gameplay, the inconsistent and mostly useless game world, the ever-degrading social atmosphere and the incompetent GMs, even "free" is too expensive.

BINGO!you saved me a post.This is what happens when a company doesn't develop a game from the ground up and understand their audience. Activision saw a cash cow and bought it. Now the cow is dying and they don't know what to do nor did they ever.

Comment by lonewarrior

on 2011-11-09T00:47:23-06:00

I quit the game because of the people/community, not the game itself, WoW is still a good game, no doubt! But the whiners and "1337ers" ruined it with all their QQ'ing and big mouthing. The Pandaren sounds fun, blaming thing on pandaren with kung fu panda "jokes" is idiotic IMO, this shows what kind of majority of people that are playing the game, narrow-minded fools. And the QQ'ing about all the new stuff, and the "I miss vanilla"-^&*!, "ohh.. we wan't vanilla" "vanilla was so much better" "wrath babies..". No wonder people are quitting, when you can't make a mistake without getting yelled at and kicked, instead of explaining what they should have done different etc.

In my opinion Blizzard didn't kill this game, the players did!

Your right..but not exactly.The Vanilla reminiscing is in part that it was a more accommodating community during those days. I came into this game with TBC and I can tell you I was about a newbish as can be.I was helped numerous times, I was afforded understanding. The same kind I passed along and still do. My whole guild as well.If I had experienced the community as it has become today I would never had played remotely as long as I did. Activision with their lack of understanding in trying to foster their vision on the game instead created a game mired in mediocrity and an ever growing segment of the community that can't see beyond their own nose.Their response...to make solo progression even easier in the future. Yeah...that's the ticket.<<<extreme sarcasm

Comment by LordBalrog

on 2011-11-09T02:00:30-06:00

That makes 1.8 Million in net subscription losses. The silver lining for Blizzard is the fact that, unlike the earlier losses, these were mostly from Chinese subscribers, who on average don't pay nearly as much per month as everybody else (due to paying by the hour instead of by the month).

Still, that's a drop from 12M down to 10.2M in a year. The game's only hope to stave off an 'early' death at this point is the hoped-for re-subs come MoP-time.

Comment by majinash

on 2011-11-09T02:34:37-06:00

I feel like "This is just a bad design. A game should not ask for daily commitment to enjoy what it has to offer." is a poor way to put it. Dailys are bad design not because you have to log on every day to do them, but because they are a stretching out of content.

Molten front added less than 30 quests to the game, but asked that I do something like 300+ quests to complete the content. Adding 300 quests and asking me to do 300 quests is really cool with me, adding 30 quests and telling me to do them all 10 times is very not cool (and I did them far more than 10 times each)

When I finished MF dailys up to 1 vendor on my warrior, I was done. having already gone through the whole time twice on my 2 mains, I just wanted those BS patterns. So I had to slog through the EXACT same quests day after day... after I'd already been doing them for more than a month.

So I disagree that asking me to log in once a day is bad, but I don't want to log in every day for 40min so I can do the exact same quest I did yesterday, and the day before on all my alts.

I feel like now that they've answered a question on the topic of dailys being bad design, they'll never answer it again, and our chance at it was poorly worded so they were able to just brush it aside.

Comment by i93sme2

on 2011-11-09T02:40:37-06:00

The problem with the game is the level cap. If you do advance that then don't QQ about the fact ppl will not play the former endgame anymore (items dropped or anything gained (receipes, etc) = useless)Also reusing it, is like eating old food reheated, so no, it won't help either. Take for example ZA, that was properly designed and staged during TBC, and the transformed into a mockery of itself in Cata.Now Blizz adds an ill designed expansion and voila, loss of subscribers. The problem with loss of subscribers is not only in numbers but also quality. If you end up with a bunch of kids remaining, then the PuGs will get a PiTA and a big one. And that will throw off more and more quality players.Same problem arisen during TBC and the emerge of the Russian based realms that drained a lot of realms of quality players (my former guild lost almost 50% of players). Unfortunately, this game is a team based game. And it takes some level of maturity (alas) to really function well in a team, especially if some roles and spots in it bear _responsability_.Right now, as it is, with a lot of quality players going to other MMOs (eg. Rift), with kids remaining or being gained as 'new customers', it is no more fun to play the game. Also:- old villains gone- old heroes gone- new ones hastly sketched (Deathwing is a big example of how not to introduce and sketch a villain, it never caught shape as a villain worth fighting among the old players)

Comment by Nocturnal558

on 2011-11-09T03:53:54-06:00

I quit the game because of the people/community, not the game itself, WoW is still a good game, no doubt! But the whiners and "1337ers" ruined it with all their QQ'ing and big mouthing. The Pandaren sounds fun, blaming thing on pandaren with kung fu panda "jokes" is idiotic IMO, this shows what kind of majority of people that are playing the game, narrow-minded fools. And the QQ'ing about all the new stuff, and the "I miss vanilla"-^&*!, "ohh.. we wan't vanilla" "vanilla was so much better" "wrath babies..". No wonder people are quitting, when you can't make a mistake without getting yelled at and kicked, instead of explaining what they should have done different etc.

In my opinion Blizzard didn't kill this game, the players did!

Your right..but not exactly.The Vanilla reminiscing is in part that it was a more accommodating community during those days. I came into this game with TBC and I can tell you I was about a newbish as can be.I was helped numerous times, I was afforded understanding. The same kind I passed along and still do. My whole guild as well.If I had experienced the community as it has become today I would never had played remotely as long as I did. Activision with their lack of understanding in trying to foster their vision on the game instead created a game mired in mediocrity and an ever growing segment of the community that can't see beyond their own nose.Their response...to make solo progression even easier in the future. Yeah...that's the ticket.<<<extreme sarcasm

Mine is a similar story.I started playing WoW the summer before BC was released, and I levelled up on my own. I wanted to challenge myself as much as possible, but when I needed help, I found it. Assistance and kindness were abundant and appreciated. I was at both the giving and the recieving end. I've stuck with WoW due to ending up in a great guild in which I've made lots of friends. However, had I not, I doubt very much that I'd have kept playing. With solo content becoming easier(speeding up the levelling process, some group quests being laughably soloable), playing the game feels less rewarding, and as such the need for politeness and helping each other deteriorate. With tools like the dungeon finder interacting with others become less important, all you need to do to gear up is press the buttons, fulfill your role like you're supposed to, and claim your rewards at the vendors.

This encourages people only to think of themselves, meaning that those MMO'ers who appreciate team effort being necessary to succeed will be inclined to unsubscribe. A very self-destructive path for an MMORPG to take, if you ask me.

Comment by mandibleclaw

on 2011-11-09T06:12:04-06:00

Frankly? %^&* all the whiners. and even they lost 800k people, I'd rather have 10 Millions of sane people instead of 12 millions of whiners. Im excited abt pandaria, it's all I wanted, I wanted to play pandas since forever and now I will be able to. and I dont care abt the freaking story or the big bad guy, bosses are bosses, with unique techniques and cool mechanisms, stories wont do me $%^&, gear will, i can completly ignore the name of the boss and then go in and down him correctly, enjoy my game and then loot my brand new gear :) I'm excited abt the new expansion and I will say from now, thanks blizzard.

Comment by pezz

Seems like this current dip is the first time (barring the Chinese government's silliness) that subs have actually gone down, rather than not increased as quickly.

Comment by LordBalrog

on 2011-11-09T07:21:45-06:00

Frankly? %^&* all the whiners. and even they lost 800k people, I'd rather have 10 Millions of sane people instead of 12 millions of whiners. Im excited abt pandaria, it's all I wanted, I wanted to play pandas since forever and now I will be able to. and I dont care abt the freaking story or the big bad guy, bosses are bosses, with unique techniques and cool mechanisms, stories wont do me $%^&, gear will, i can completly ignore the name of the boss and then go in and down him correctly, enjoy my game and then loot my brand new gear :) I'm excited abt the new expansion and I will say from now, thanks blizzard.

But what happens in the 6-9 months between now and when Mists of Pandaria launches? If losses continue at the rate they have been, that's another 1-1.5M net loss in subscribers. Now you're down to 8.7-9.2M subs.

To make up losses like that Mists of Pandaria would have to be the bar-none best expansion ever, burying Burning Crusade and Wrath. Somehow I just don't see that happening. In fact, I would be surprised if MoP got back even half of the 2.8M+ subs lost by the time of its launch.

Comment by Rainemard

on 2011-11-09T08:30:28-06:00

All I can say is, you get out of the game, what you put into it. So long as there's a server running for me to play on, i'm positive i'm going to find a way to enjoy wow. When I decide to play it, at least. There's just so many other games out/coming out... =)

Personally my biggest worry at the moment is the fact that Revelations is coming out a mere four days after Skyrim! Madness! Too soon, err... Ubi... xecutus!

To say nothing of the 4.3 goodness coming out sometime in the weeks to follow.

Oh yeah, and a Kung Fu Panda expansion should be free, as awesomeness has no charge. As for a bad guy, there's some negative energy dudes messing up the Pandaren's zen-ness... and no doubt the whole "Horde vs. Alliance" thing will spill over into Pandaria, giving the dudes more negative energy, after which the Pandaren will plead for us to help save them from a mess we made worse. I'm calling it now!*

Edit: Nvm it's already been confirmed... s'what I get for missing Blizzcon!

Comment by Eccentrica

on 2011-11-09T08:51:49-06:00

Even if the game loses another million or so players, who cares really. The number of people who play the game is simply staggering. Perhaps there were simply too many players at the peak anyway, far too many. Without the use of mind control, no one can find a way to make 12 million people simultaneously happy, and so it's not surprising that everything in the game makes a number of people complain loudly. If a change is not made, people complain. If a change is made, other people complain. There is no single camp, no issue, no subject on which significant portions of the playerbase agree, and before anyone says, "look at all the posts on the forums about...." I would counter that for every forum poster who complains there are hundreds of thousands of players who don't agree and don't post about it either.

And I don't think that "a lot" of players are going to move on to other games, at least not a large percentage, some will yes. There are millions of players who don't cancel their subscriptions in fits of pique every ten minutes. There are millions who don't whine on the official forums. The silent minority will vote with their dollars. Wow is not dead. Wow is not dying. The tree is being pruned, so to speak.

Comment by LordBalrog

on 2011-11-09T09:16:34-06:00

And I don't think that "a lot" of players are going to move on to other games, at least not a large percentage, some will yes. There are millions of players who don't cancel their subscriptions in fits of pique every ten minutes. There are millions who don't whine on the official forums. The silent minority will vote with their dollars. Wow is not dead. Wow is not dying. The tree is being pruned, so to speak.

A net subscription loss of 15% from the same time last year, with the losses growing for four straight quarters, is no big deal? And no reason to expect those losses to subside for at least 6 more months, probably longer?

And note that that is a net loss, meaning more than 1.8M people have quit, they just found enough new subs to bring the damage down to 'only' 1.8M lost.

The notion that there is no reason for concern just doesn't make sense.